Tuesday, 26 April 2016

Ecuador needs your help

I'm pissed. I'm really pissed. Because there's so much bad happening and so much help needed but really many don't even know anything about the whole case. But, this definitely isn't my personal feelings -post, this is a post about my other home country, Ecuador. On Saturday 16th of April, 2016, an earthquake of 7,8 grades hit the northern coast of Ecuador. It was so strong, that even in the province of Cotpaxi, over 200 km away from the epicentre in the province of Esmeraldas, we could move the ground moving below our feet and people ran away from their houses, some lost electricity and in some other areas some stores had massive damage because the merchandise fell form the shelfs. But, that was nothing compared to what happened at the coast.

In the towns, where te earthquake was the strogest, are parts where over 70% of the houses collapsed completely. There have been over 700 deaths (and the number keeps still rising), there are still people missing, thousands of injured people and thousands without food, shelter or even water. Let me tell you, the situation is a lot worse than even news let you know. And the after earthquakes keep going on. A part from that, Ecuador was already before in an economic crisis, so this earthquake definitely didn't help the financial situation either. The one bright side of the things is, that the whole country works amazingly beautifully together. Everybody donates water, food or clothes to send to the coast, volunteers save survivors and dig bodies from the ruins with the fire fighters and polices of whom 75% are at the coast now, and for example with y exchhange friends we went to the donation center and organized the donations for more than two hours, and our male friends built coffeins, because they were even running out of them (everyone there was also just volunteering). I've never seen any country work that well together and work that much to help each other, and it has been amazing to prove. But the help from insie the country still isn't enough. We've gotten a lot of help from the neighbour countries and some from neighbours further, but Ecuador still needs a lot more. It's going to take many years before the ruined cities will be rebuild, and before that more importantly it's still gonna take a long time before everyone who lost their houses will get shelter, and even until they all will have enough food and water. At the heat of the coast the need of water is especially serious, as well as the need of medicine because the diseases keep spreading with the bodies and uncovered people everywhere. So many families have felt such a loss, that all we can do now is to help them get back on their feet. We exchange students also felt the personal loss, when our German friend who lived in Manta, one of the towns that was affected the worst, was found dead with her whole host family after looking for her for 3 days. The news were and are horrible and everytime I do realize it it gets just as horrible as finding out about it, but it just pushes us forward to help the people that we still are able to help. But our resources are just as strong, so please give Ecuador a hand. Even just one dollar / euro / peso or whatever is a start, and the whole country is really helpful for all kind of help. Ecuador needs you.

- and also if you prefer not using the organizationes, sending money to us exchange students here to buy water and such to donate is also a good way (if you even thought about us keeping the money, you still haven't realized how bad the situation is and how bad we want to help) / ja jos mieluummin et maksa järjestön kautta, niin suoraan meille vaihtareillekin voi lähettää rahaa jolla voimme ostaa vettä ja muuta tarpeellista lahjoitettavaksi (jos mielessäsi edes kävi että pitäisimme rahan itse niin et ole vielä ymmäryänyt miten psha tilanne on ja miten kovasti haluamme auttaa)